Editorial January 30, 1926 Issue

Watching and Praying

Duncan Sinclair

Christ Jesus laid great stress upon both prayer and watching; for just as prayer is essential in the life of the Christian, so is watchfulness. One remembers the occasion in Gethsemane, whither Jesus had gone with a few of his disciples before his betrayal. In his trial he had said to them, "Tarry ye here, and watch with me," while he went a little way apart to pray. Returning to them, he found them asleep, "and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" adding the words, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." And were not the words of Paul to the Corinthian church, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong"?

It is instructive to note that Jesus gave the reason for the need of watching and praying when he said to Peter, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." For the Master, the greatest metaphysician the world has ever known, knew that material belief, of which the flesh is a manifestation, gives mankind its every problem, and that spiritual sense, which is the possession of every one, is the sense which endows with the power to combat and overcome material belief in its every phase. Nothing is clearer from a study of the epistles of the New Testament than that this was understood by the apostles. All of them were alive to the nature of the conflict; all of them knew how necessary it was to be watchful when the claims of matter presented themselves, and to combat these false claims by the agency of prayer. Jesus continually used that spiritual weapon. How otherwise could he have healed the sick and sinning as he did, borne the brutality of the crucifixion, overcome the belief of death, and finally ascended?

Just as Christ Jesus and his followers in the early Christian church watched and prayed and instructed others to do the same, so does Christian Science admonish its followers to-day. Mrs. Eddy writes on the very first page of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science: "Regardless of what another may say or think on this subject, I speak from experience. Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind." These words of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science would seem to amplify those of the Master and of Paul quoted above. But fundamentally the thought is the same. For watchfulness and prayerfulness must inevitably result in self-immolation. And what a combination they make! No form of materiality can possibly resist it. Every erroneous belief of material sense must fall before it.

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